Stem cells contributing to postnatal skeletogenesis in the mouse bone marrow

Postnatal skeletogenesis is a highly regulated process that subpopulations of bone marrow stem cells differentiate into mature skeletal tissues to maintain and repair the postnatal skeletons. Based on their skeletogenic capacity, purified bone marrow stem cells have been used to repair and replace damaged skeletal tissues in recent years. In the meantime, significant effort has been devoted to unveil the nature and function of the “skeletogenic” precursors in vivo. In this review, we summarized our current understanding of the identification and fate-mapping of the stem cells contributing to postnatal skeletogenesis in the mouse bone marrow.